From Hildburg Bruns
Leni* (11) did not expect this letter from the Pankow school authority at all. Three pages full of rejections! After the summer holidays, she was not able to get a place in the 7th grade either at her dream grammar school or at the two alternative schools – and that with a super grade point average of 1.1!
The student cried a lot over the weekend. “She worked for a year to get a good average,” says BZ’s mother. Last year at the Ossietzky-Gymnasium, an average of 1.3 was enough…
It has never been as tight as it is now: Berlin is currently still missing 170 high school places, said the responsible State Secretary Alexander Slotty (38, SPD) on Thursday in the Education Committee. Especially in high schools.
Leni and her parents had chosen the Carl-von-Ossietzky-Gymnasium (Görschstrasse) as their first choice. What they did not know: A total of 236 students applied for the 126 places with English as their first foreign language – almost every second student would get nothing!
How these 126 places have now been distributed? Twelve went to cases of hardship, 76 after average grades (officially “funding prognosis”), 38 places were raffled. But when it came to grades, almost only 1.0 children got a chance. Of the 30 applicants with 1.1, twelve were lucky. Leni was not one of them.
The rush to their two second and third wishes wasn’t that great, but the places there are gone due to their own first wishes.
► Felix-Mendelssohn-Bartholdy-Gymnasium: 233 applicants for 224 places.
► Rosa-Luxemburg-Gymnasium: 91 applicants for 64 places.
A meeting of the school boards with the Senate is now chasing the next. “We support the districts in the best possible way in providing school places,” says Martin Klesmann, spokesman for Education Senator Astrid-Sabine Busse (64, SPD). “In the end, every child will have a place.” The only question is where and how far the daily journey will be.
“Currently, work is being done at full speed throughout Berlin to create more high school places, so that we will now be offering you a school place at a high school until June 22,” the letter says.
Leni’s parents are considering filing an objection and may want to sue!
*Name changed
